The lectionary readings for this week are Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21; and John 15:1-8. In this entry, I will focus on the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.
The events of Acts 8 occur in a context of extreme upheaval in the early Church. In the previous chapter, Luke describes the martyrdom of Stephen in what appears to be a lynching by stoning. The detail of witnesses laying their coats at the feet of Saul (who will become Paul) implies a judicial execution. In the wake of Stephen’s death, the early followers of Jesus leave Jerusalem and disperse to the countryside of Judea and Samaria (8:1). Yet as a result of the persecution, the scattered followers preach the Gospel in new areas. This passage is significant in that it describes the evangelizing of possibly the first non-Jewish converts (notes from NOAB).
Chapter 8 describes two acts of baptism. In order to contextualize the passage in this week’s lectionary, it is useful to compare it to Peter’s encounter with the Samaritans directly preceding. Samaritans were descendents from the inhabitants of Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who occupied that area after the Assyrian invaded and deported the Jewish population in 722 BCE. While Samaritans observed the Pentateuch and considered their ancestors to be the small number of Jews allowed to remain in the Northern Kingdom, Jews returning from exile did not consider them to be authentically Jewish, but rather the descendents of usurpers of land that had previously been theirs. Ezra and Nehemiah went so far as to forbid intermarriage between the two groups (NOAB, Glossary, 552). In The Misunderstood Jew, Amy-Jill Levine argues that although much biblical commentary portrays Samaritans as an oppressed minority, it would be more accurate to regard the two groups as religious rivals (Levine, 148). They shared holy texts, but observed different calendars and worshipped at different temples, as the Samaritan woman at the well indicates to Jesus. In order to recover the punch of the Good Samaritan parable, one might imagine, for example, not a homeless person helping a rich man, but Unitarian helping a Pentecostalist or vice versa.
A significance of the juxtaposition of the Ethiopian Eunuch narrative with the narrative of the Samaritans is that both depict groups outside the demographic of the Apostles’ first followers. Just as the Gospel of Luke emphasizes the role of Gentiles in Jesus’ mission, so the book of Acts shows early Christian leaders reaching across cultural boundaries in order to preach the Gospel.
“Eunuch” in the time period of Acts generally refers to a castrated man who has an official function in the home or government of a ruler. The word’s etymology comes from eune, or “bed,” and ekhein, “to keep.” Unable to have children, eunuchs may have been considered more reliable, as they could neither have children with women in the royal household nor found a rival dynasty to threaten the ruler. However, not having a family to defend them may have also put eunuchs in a position of greater vulnerability.
The passage of this week’s lection begins as follows:
26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Two aspects that stand out from 26-31 are Philip’s receptiveness to guidance from the Holy Spirit directing him to the Eunuch, and the Eunuch’s desire to be taught. The passage depicts Philip acting as an instrument of the Lord, approaching the chariot at the command of a divine messenger. A contrast Luke draws attention to concerns their difference in what one might call class; the Eunuch is a person of political power, in charge of the royal treasury of Ethiopia. He is leaving Jerusalem, where he acquired a scroll of Isaiah. When Philip approaches him, he is reading the text without comprehension. This section calls to mind Peter Gomes’ introduction to The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind. Gomes states that for many churchgoers, reading the Bible is like overhearing a conversation in fluent French at a neighboring table, trying, yet failing to understand with one’s high school French. However the Eunuch actives reaches out to Philip, requesting assistance.
32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."
34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
The passage which the Eunuch is reading is Isaiah 53:7-8. This chapter of Isaiah contains what is often called the depiction of the suffering servant, a passage that Christians have interpreted as prophesying Jesus’s suffering, vicarious atonement for human sin, and resurrection. Luke may have also intended the narrative of the Eunuch to resonate with readers familiar with God’s outreach to eunuchs expressed in Isaiah 56:3-5:
Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say,
"The LORD will surely exclude me from his people."
And let not any eunuch complain,
"I am only a dry tree."
4 For this is what the LORD says:
"To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant-
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.
Other passages that highlight the relationship between God and Ethiopia are Zeph 10.3("From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering"), and Psalm 68:31 (“let Ethiopia hasten to stretch out to God.”) These passages indicate the important role Africa has in the texts that make up the biblical canon.
The passage from Acts 8 continues:
36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the Gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
The following passage from IVP New Testament Commentaries, quoted by biblegateway.com, interprets this passage as in keeping with the overarching motif of radical includion in Luke’s texts:
"One of Luke's great concerns is that obstacles of age (Lk 18:16), religious tradition, old or new (Lk 9:49-50; 11:52), race or ethnic origin (Acts 10:47; 11:17), or physical condition (8:36, if the eunuch were one physically) must not keep people from hearing and applying to themselves the gospel of salvation. His ideal is found in the closing phrase, indeed the closing word, of Acts: "Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ" (28:31). . . . Though Philip is taken away suddenly, the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing. For Luke and us, joy is a manifestation of a person's salvation (8:8; Lk 6:23; 10:20), particularly of reception of the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:52)."
This commentary particularly draws attention to the joy felt by the Eunuch which characterizes his conversation. The following is a clip of the Alison Krause song “Down in the River to Pray,” used in the baptism scene in the Coen Brothers film, O Brother Where Art Thou:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBjwMRa_jhg&feature=PlayList&p=23532204B4AD7A0E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=46
--Elizabeth Fels
Information on the spread of Christianity in Ethiopia can be found in these resources:
http://www.bethel.edu/~letnie/EthiopiaHomepage.html
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acet/hd_acet.htm
Other sources:
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Levine, Amy-Jill. The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. New York: HarperOne, 2006.
Bible passages quoted from the New International Bible.
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